On serenity & permanent life changes

I officially dropped off the map. Dammit, normally I’m pretty good at follow through. Except for those years I knew I had a drinking problem and willfully ignored it

My last posting was in the spring – nearly 5 months ago (?) – and I would like to say, dear reader, that it’s all ok.

In these days of silence, I’ve done a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have: allowed myself to be sucked into family drama (oh my god, the blog posting I could write about THAT HOT MESS), I allowed myself to be a complete bitch negative for days on end, I’ve picked fights with my husband over really important shit like the proper way to hang a polo shirt, I’ve had too much coffee, I’ve snuck chocolate late at night when calories just don’t count. I’ve accidentally made my niece cry by being too pushy (god I feel like such an awful person), and I’ve made belittling comments about myself.

One think I haven’t done? Had a single drop of alcohol.

My commitment to sobriety is most certainly stronger than i was all those months ago, when I emerged from a horrible night, humbled & broken by my own addiction and the very dangerous place I chose to put myself & loved ones. 

I think some of this has to do with serenity; on fully accepting without a single doubt that I am an alcoholic and that I will never be able to handle alcohol in any form, in any situation, no matter what. I’ve surrendered to the fact that sometimes anxiety & sadness will rear its somber, tired ass; and I might have to have it sit on my shoulder for a little longer than I would like. (God, fuck you, anxiety, for the raw pangs of electicity that shoot down my chest and poke at the most vulnerable parts of me. For the haunting repition that occasionally beats like a drum: what if what if what it what if whatifwhatif. I’m coming for you, with my yoga and my gratitude and my self-care and my healthy eating.)

And you know, I don’t feel bad for myself. I feel empowered that I finally realized what path I was taking, and chose to turn around. I feel stronger for knowing my weaknesses and doing the daily work to remind myself why I’m here. I’m grateful.

I’m sober.

Can you relate?

Checking in from day 115 (!!) – and how are you all feeling today?! So glad you didn’t make an ass out of yourself on St. Patty’s Day? Or, perhaps you did, and today is your day one? Wherever you are – welcome! You’re not drinking TODAY which is what really counts.

Two things are just so true about getting sober:

1) the sugar cravings (and with all the gorgeosu pastel colored treats being rolled out at every shop and store…lord help me)

2) the irritation and frustration that can hit quickly, ferioucously & sometimes unexpectedly. holy shit, i will absolutely take this trade-off – nothing can make drinking look good to me, ever again – but LET IT BE KNOWN: sometimes, you might feel like the bitchiest, most annoyed, ready to throw a temper-tantrum version of your self. over something terribly important like, I don’t know, the amount of time the dick in front of you at the coffee shop takes to make his order. BUT YOU ARE NOT DRINKING. So! Overall a great success.

This is also why this e card made me laugh so much !

Hippos and unicorns

With talk of resolutions and change, of hitting the gym harder and longer, of juicing and cleansing dominating social media since NYE (now there’s a big shocker for you, eh?), I had to share this little picture.

And honestly, LOL!

Hahahajkajkaha. Aren’t we all that little hippo, looking for some inspiration and working hard to reach our goals. Go get ’em, tiger !

Something to inspire the New Year…

Loves, I have been ridiculously cranky this holiday season. At times, it’s to the point where I want to revert back to being five years old and slam a door, stomp my feet, and shout really loudly until everyone UNDERSTANDS JUST HOW FRUSTRATED I AM. Preferably also as miserable as I am. What kind of a shitty response is that, now, eh?

Some of it I am sure has to do with silly expectations I place on myself & loved ones on how things SHOULD be (note to self: must stop doing that so much), some of it has to do with riding out the waves of sobriety (day 37 today! fuck yes!), and some of it is just the fact that it’s the most wonderful time of the year (LOL to THAT one sometimes, amirite?) – chock full of some family members who seem to think it appropriate to expect that everyone ELSE will coordinate things and cook and clean while said family member sits on his ass, entitled as fuck. Not that I haven’t resolved that particular frustration…

In any event, I love this image, I love that it places the power of your own feelings back in your hands. In 2014, I want to cultivate more calm & less irritation, more peace and less annoyance. And a lot of that has to do with me.

I can’t change people when they’re acting like complete dickheads, I can’t stop my beautiful nieces from occasionally spilling an entire glass of juice all over the clean carpet, I can’t control the fact that my sister has the most fucked up in laws in the entire planet, I can’t stop the small part of me that feels sad that my parents are divorced – childhood nostalgia stuff. But what I can do is try to remove myself from the situation, or take a lot of big fucking breaths, and inhale some lavender essential oil and make myself tea and remind myself that to be human is to deal with this stuff. Not to numb it out or ignore it. Not to distract myself with drinking, or to become completely wrapped up in my own selfishness. To take it and let it go. ❤

Recommendations on how *you* calm yourself down/talk yourself off of that ledge would be most welcome! XO

Close that damn book already.

It’s a twisted tendency, to rake oneself over the coals of our past mistakes. To languish in yesterday’s transgressions and feel that weight pressing down. To ask these recurring questions: why me? why am I this way? how come? what is broken here?

…it can be a never ending loop of guilt, shame, remorse, and, honestly, self pity.

Well, fuck that. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it just starts to be self destructive at some point. Motivation for change? Good. Beating oneself up? Bad.

So here’s to the next book, my friends. You can revisit those old chapters from time to time. Just don’t get too lost there. You don’t belong there anymore.

A healthy place to start. And return to.

This little image has brought me great happiness in the last few days.

I’m working on my sobriety, and through the sludge of issues snared and coiled around drinking. But having love for myself – as well as for the struggle, and for the outcome I’m seeking – makes me feel free.

So love yourself. No matter how beaten up, fucked up, run down, or goddamned tired you feel. I know that exhaustion. And still have love for you in this. ❤

What’s really crippling me here? Anxiety/Alcohol/Abuse/AGH

When you first get sober, there is a lot of stuff you hear. I’ve read the word “serenity” more times in the last 12 days than, well, probably ever. I keep hearing about a “pink cloud,” about “powerlessness,” about “riding the wave,” and about “letting things go.” Well, what if you aren’t sure of what, exactly, you need to let go? What if the crux of your deepest vulnerability is the unknown twists of your own neural pathways?

I’ve struggled with anxiety since I was in fifth grade. I can remember the distinct moment I realized that my mind could operate in ways I might not understand. Many Mays ago, I sat in the backseat of my parent’s car, unable to breathe very well. I was struck with a searing, crippling fear of boredom. My little legs sat, dangling, and I recall looking down through hot tears, worrying that I just was not ok. I would worry that I would not be able to fall asleep that night, and that tomorrow, I wouldn’t have anything to do. My parents tried to help  – bless their hearts, they have never, ever once judged me for any mental or emotional struggle – suggesting various activities, and my first panicked response to each suggestion was, “Well…what will I do after THAT?! And after that?!” It was an escalating fear of listlessness, of needing to have a plan, to know what’s next, to have something to look forward to – and to stay in motion, I believe – that gave me my very first brush with unexplained panic. My mind was stuck on a hamster wheel and didn’t know how to make it stop. That’s a lot to handle in elementary school.

This disconnect between fear & anxiety, with my heart & soul, is what has caused great discontent in the nearly two decades since that vulnerable, life-changing scene in my beloved parent’s sedan. At times, I have a fear and sadness that I cannot quite put my finger on, and it, to put it bluntly, scares the fuck out of me. What am I, Sylvia Plath? There’s nothing wrong, externally – I have a wonderful family, my husband is absolutely supportive and loving, I have a great job, blah blah blah…and still, every once in awhile (though not when drinking! AHA) old staticky panic settles in like a too-tight boiled wool sweater. It feels like my mind is a blank TV, with the old-school black/gray/white noisy static flickering across the glass. Going. Going. Going. Going.

Oh yes, I have been in and out of therapy, I take a low-dosage antidepressant, I exercise and eat healthfully, and still. Without alcohol, which I now realize perfectly — blissfully? — blurred the line of sadness and worry, I that the ghosts of anxiety will come back with a vengeance. I was making a deal with the devil; trading one inherited mental/emotional issue for a deeply dark habit. I put down the goddamned cards and backed the fuck up from that table. But I’m walking away shaky; I’m walking away bruised; I’m walking away knowing that I need to change something deeper than just not drinking.

And yes, in the reading, I have heard about the drama that recovery can bring. So…am I making this a bigger deal that it really is? I am the Reigning Queen of Overanalyzation – dun, dun, dun dun! – I also wonder if I am spinning in circles because, quite frankly, that’s a thought pattern I have fallen into before, with gusto.

But I also need to get this down: Most of the time, I am happy and productive. My husband is incredibly supportive and loving, I adore my (dysfunctional, at times) family, my mother & sister are on this sobriety journey with me, I have great friends, I love my job, and we don’t struggle with health or financial issues. So what the fuck do I really have to complain about?  Nothing. I am so, so grateful for everything we have and all I have worked for.

And still. It’s the potent mix of anxiety & depression, the ghosts of my bloodline – the family tree is deeply carved with such issues, as well as alcoholism – that continue to knock around and bubble up.

Riddle me this: what the fuck is wrong with me?

So this is where the tears start.

Day 11.

I have welled up, sniffled, misted over and cried more in the last four or five days that I have in the whole two months preceding this. I think it’s because I’m really coming clean with myself; that I have a deep hurt and vulnerability here. Ann Dowsett Johnson’s book “Drink” made me tear up at least 18 times, speaking with my beloved mother-in-law about this and having her support and encouragement made me cry. Talking with my mother and sister, who are on similar journeys, can make my throat ache with some kind of sob wanting to come out. I feel fragile, and strong. How’s that for a mixed bag? Fuckkkk.

And pride, too; for just surrendering, goddamn it, and finally acknowledging that I need to change my life or else things will crash and burn. For about two years, I worried and wondered whether I had a problem. I tried to set limits, I tried to control it, and all the while there was a slow burn of recognition taking place. It burned long enough. Finally, thank God finally, alarms went off, louder and louder and louder until it finally woke me the fuck up. 

I’m seeing how this is connected to the other parts of my life – my heart & soul & mind. That issues of the past may have never fully been resolved; that I channeled other harmful behavior & thoughts into the bottle. It was always rather convenient to think of my drinking issues as a huge mess neatly contained within a tidy box.

I like boxes. I like tidy things. I have OCD tendencies, for Christs’ sake, and knowing that this is a huge area that needs careful attention and sorting feels so difficult…but so honest, and worth it. It doesn’t feel completely overwhelming; at least, not most of the time. I want to connect with my better self here, and drinking was completely obfuscating my ability to do that. (It’s ok, you can think I’m an asshole for using the word “obfuscating.” I don’t know where the fuck that one came from.)

So, I shall keep digging. And working. And trying to learn more about myself on this journey. 

Reading these words was like a sucker punch.

Am reading ‘Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol,’ by Ann Dowsett Johnston.

Tucked in bed last night, sleepy from a long, wonderful, happy, and sober (yaaaaaaaaaay!!!) Thanksgiving weekend with husband & my in-laws, I read the last sentence on this page…and took a sharp breath, as if I had been slapped. (And I suppose I had been, in a way.) Here, spelled out, was what my heart already knew:

“…there are two things you need to know: One, it’s the first drink that gets you drunk. Two, this is a progressive disease — it only gets worse.”

Holy shit. Isn’t that some incredibly insightful, perfectly honest and simply stated truth for you.

The first drink is the moment it goes wrong. And it never gets better.

Loving this book. Will share more insights soon. Any other good reads out there?

I’d like to see a heroin store on my block.

Today is day three for me, and I am slogging and sifting through the emotional fall-out of Saturday night. I am badly shaken, and fell asleep to myself saying, “You can do this. Thank God the night didn’t end differently. You can do this…” — and, yes, I do truly believe that.

Last night, I was watching my beloved trashy TV on Bravo, when an ad for Bailey’s came on. Now, Bailey’s has never been a drink I enjoyed, nor ever thought much about. But seeing this ridiculous advertisement (seriously, Bailey’s? You have grown women wrapped in swaths of taupe-colored fabric, shimmying around to sell your coffee flavored liqueur?) made me think…now where are the fucking ads for other substances? I’d like to see that heroin store, or perhaps the cocaine billboard greeting me as I drive to work. Maybe some happy actors popping pills to the tune of Christmas carols. No?

Yeah, that doesn’t happen. But it certainly does with the devil on my shoulder: alcohol.

Before anyone gets their knickers in a knot – I’m being a tad facetious. What I’m getting at is the pervasive nature of alcohol; its glimmering advertisements, go-get-’em posters, and  presence at an overwhelming majority of festivities and celebrations. It’s fucking everywhere, especially when you’re learning to leave it the hell behind.

Substance abuse and addiction is a rotten, difficult thing. But I have to think that the level at which we encourage & celebrate alcohol consumption makes alcoholism quite different from battling an illicit drug addiction. If you give up free-basing, I’m guessing your aunt and uncle wn’t ask you if you’d like to partake at Thanksgiving. Champagne? Wine? Beer? These are things I need to learn to be around, much as I’d like to never see them again. SIGH BITCH WHINE MOAN COMPLAIN STOMP MY GODDAMNED FEET.

As I told myself last night, laying in bed, alternating between waves of remorse and blissful moments of confidence – yes, I can do this. And YOU can do this. We can do this.